Kevin McGonigle is...

[Jason_R]

55 minutes ago, monkeytargets39 said:

The CBA is the hang up on us making a big offer to Skubal before the offseason.  That’s it.  That’s the reason.

I agree that the CBA and potential work stoppage are factors that are influencing this process.

If you are Boras, you are advising your client to test the market before a salary cap is possibly introduced. 

If you are Ilitch, you are not going to bid against yourself in a situation where mega contracts may become obsolete. 

Finally, I don’t believe for a second that Boras is in charge of Skubal’s decision. One does not become the best in a highly competitive field by being stupid, lazy, or passive. Skubal will make his own decision. 

[1984Echoes]

1 minute ago, Jason_R said:

...  I don’t believe for a second that Boras is in charge of Skubal’s decision. One does not become the best in a highly competitive field by being stupid, lazy, or passive. Skubal will make his own decision. 

Thank you!!!

[gehringer_2]

4 minutes ago, ben9753 said:

I'll never get the hate people have for Boras. It's big money business, 100's of millions of dollars on the line. His job is to make his clients the most money possible, and he's obviously very good at his job. Why does he get so much hate?

It's not the player, it's the game. Boras is acting inside the system created by the recent CBAs. I don't like that system because I think it's bad for fans. I don't how much influence Boras has had in the creation of that system as I don't have any way of knowing the degree of his influence on what the union has bargained for over the years. I wouldn't be surprised if his influence was substantial though.

[Motor City Sonics]

1 minute ago, Jason_R said:

I agree that the CBA and potential work stoppage are factors that are influencing this process.

If you are Boras, you are advising your client to test the market before a salary cap is possibly introduced. 

If you are Ilitch, you are not going to bid against yourself in a situation where mega contracts may become obsolete. 

Finally, I don’t believe for a second that Boras is in charge of Skubal’s decision. One does not become the best in a highly competitive field by being stupid, lazy, or passive. Skubal will make his own decision. 

That CBA isn't going to change anything.  That's what we thought the last few work stoppages.  There's not going to be a salary cap and all these two sides are going to do is piss off their fan base, damage local game-centered economies and push the game further away from regular folks.    Hundreds of other entertainment options are out there now.     Cutting off their nose to spite their face, right? 

[monkeytargets39]

I doubt there will be a salary cap with a new CBA, but I can totally see something pertaining to deferred money on contracts being limited or eradicated once a settlement is reached.  That could very much hamstring some of the teams that you’d think would be all in on going after Skubal.

[Jason_R]

40 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

That CBA isn't going to change anything.  That's what we thought the last few work stoppages.  There's not going to be a salary cap and all these two sides are going to do is piss off their fan base, damage local game-centered economies and push the game further away from regular folks.    Hundreds of other entertainment options are out there now.     Cutting off their nose to spite their face, right? 

Pissing off the fan base is inevitable and has already happened. But nobody knows how the CBA situation will work out. Almost anything could happen in a situation like this. 

I don’t blame Ilitch for not wanting to be the first and last owner to sign a pitcher to a $400 million contract. 

[tiger2022]

...was my last pick in my fantasy draft.  He will have a tough time cracking into the lineup,

[Cruzer1]

I think in three years, the Tigers defense will look like this:

C- Dingler, Liranzo

1b- Briceno

2b- McGonigle

3b- Rainer or Keith

SS- Rainer or Yost

RF- Keith or Chris Rodriguez

CF- Clark

LF- Greene

[gehringer_2]

Keith as a RF is definitely "out of left field"

😉

[Tiger337]

42 minutes ago, Cruzer1 said:

I think in three years, the Tigers defense will look like this:

C- Dingler, Liranzo

1b- Briceno

2b- McGonigle

3b- Rainer or Keith

SS- Rainer or Yost

RF- Keith or Chris Rodriguez

CF- Clark

LF- Greene

Three years is a long time.  I think half of the line-up will be different from what any of us are thinking today.  

[1984Echoes]

That's a lot of out with the old, in with the new....

Which is what I was saying Harris could use as a "battle plan" to sign Skubal to a big contract.

I don't know if that works for Harris and Ilitch...

That's pretty heavily dependent on kids coming up... and sticking...

But if we DO sign Skubal, IMO, that's the approach.

Some additional roster changes:

McKinstry/ Baez/ Jahmai Jones (bench guys) replaced with:

Pick 3: Hao Yu Lee, Max Anderson, Trei Cruz, Jace Jung (these guys as utility; and there may also be some additional options in the system...). I don't know if Wenceel survives this transition, but... maybe?

Verlander, Flaherty, Mize replaced with: Drew Anderson, Troy Melton & Jackson Jobe. (We may have additional options in the future but too early to say who rises and who falters from the lower tier of prospects...).

Kenley Jansen/ Will Vest replaced by... Tyler Mattison? And...? Bullpen is notorious for guys being up and down and... unexpected surprises... so just tossing out a random name here.

[Edman85]

1 hour ago, Cruzer1 said:

I think in three years, the Tigers defense will look like this:

C- Dingler, Liranzo

1b- Briceno

2b- McGonigle

3b- Rainer or Keith

SS- Rainer or Yost

RF- Keith or Chris Rodriguez

CF- Clark

LF- Greene

I think a majority of the 2029 plate appearances will be taken by players not in the organization yet.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

Sure, it's reasonable to assume that he would only consider the subset teams he regarded as competitive. Of course that doesn't mean he wouldn't use an offer from a team he had no intention of going to as leverage!

Of course, but if I'm the Dodgers, or the Tigers for that matter, if he's leveraging an offer of 10/500 from the Angels to me, I'm replying OK for you if you don't mind never going to the playoffs ever again.

[chasfh]

2 hours ago, ben9753 said:

I'll never get the hate people have for Boras. It's big money business, 100's of millions of dollars on the line. His job is to make his clients the most money possible, and he's obviously very good at his job. Why does he get so much hate?

I'm with you on this. The only thing I can imagine is that fans don't like agents who lip off it the press.

[IdahoBert]

So we still don’t know if McGonigle is “good enough“ for the Tigers this year? It’ll be a real shame if the 2027 season doesn’t even happen and he will have never been on the big club and learned by doing which is the way it always happens. 

[tiger2022]

13 minutes ago, chasfh said:

I'm with you on this. The only thing I can imagine is that fans don't like agents who lip off it the press.

A lot of fans blame Boras and others for the sky high ticket prices and the inability of small market teams to compete with the big boys. 

Or they just want the owners to keep even more money.

[gehringer_2]

The fans have themselves to blame for ticket prices. Teams are going to charge the price that exactly maximizes the tradeoff between price per ticket and number of tickets sold. The only way to force ticket prices down is to not buy them at the current price. If the players were all working for free, teams would still be pricing the tickets exactly as they are and just pocketing the difference.

Payrolls follow revenue, not the other way around. Teams that already have optimized their ticket prices cannot raise more money by increasing them in response to paying higher salaries, rather the salaries they pay follow the revenue they have been able to generate. Thus the teams that generate the highest revenue have the highest payrolls and the teams that cannot generate those revenues cannot just raise raise prices to compete by paying higher payrolls, they must find a way to be competitive (or fail) on a lower cost basis.

Now to some degree there is a way around this if putting a more expensive team on the field creates enough additional demand in your market for tickets and TV so that your revenues rise more than your expense, but since there can be a several year lag between when a team gets expensive and when it's fan base grows, if it does, it's can be a risky proposition. And some towns just aren't going to care much even if you win - (Miami?)

Edited 1 hour ago by gehringer_2

[Motor City Sonics]

Does anyone know what happens to the minors if there is a lockout / strike.   Are they part of it too now?  

 

Those little semi-pro leagues like the one we had in Utica might want to consider coming back next year.